Unlike the conventional technology, the current vehicle control technology allows a vehicle to provide a variety of functions to a user. Accordingly, image information on various functions that may be provided is displayed through a display unit provided inside the vehicle and the user can check various states, functions, navigation information; and the like, of the vehicle based on the displayed image information.
On the other hand, the diversification of the functions available in the vehicle requires a CPU of a vehicle control device to handle a more complicated and larger amount of operation. As technologies have been developed, CPUs are more highly integrated and have high performance and hardware characteristics meet the demand. However, due to the structural characteristics caused in a structure of the complicated vehicle control device, safety is inevitably lowered, compared with the use of simple functions, and in terms of characteristics of the vehicle control device, a degradation of safety may cause a high risk.
Accordingly, various methods for maintaining safety, while providing various functions related to vehicles, have been devised. For example, a method of providing a plurality of CPUs according to vehicle functions, providing a plurality of display units respectively connected to the CPUs, and displaying image information processed by the respective CPUs on each of the display units has been devised.
In this case, however, each CPU is completely independently driven to require separate hardware resources, i.e., a memory, a display, etc., thus incurring excessive cost. In addition, since each of the CPUs is driven separately, repeated tasks such as detecting a state of a vehicle are separately handled, or tasks processed in each CPU conflicts with each other. Also, in order to exchange information between the CPUs, information must be exchanged through a data transfer unit such as a bus connected between the CPUs, and thus, an amount of exchanged information is limited according to a limited bandwidth, resulting in difficulty in free utilization of the display.
Therefore, researches are being actively conducted to provide a variety of functions that can satisfy user demands, while ensuring high stability, and to utilize the display freely according to the needs of the user.